


knit you together

by openhearts



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/F, Pregnancy, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 10:49:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11919321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openhearts/pseuds/openhearts
Summary: She wants too much, too many things far too much and it can’t be okay even in the low gold light of the fire as it dies, and Lori seems to sense the sudden stillness in her and she reaches up and takes Beth’s hand gently from her hair.  She presses her lips to Beth’s palm briefly and holds it against her cheek.“Thank you baby,” she murmurs, and Beth closes her eyes and nods.





	knit you together

**Author's Note:**

> This has been in my WIPs folder for . . . two and a half years? Yeah. Anyway I've been missing Beth and Team Family lately and I wanted to write *something* of them again. Set between seasons two and three when they're on the road after the farm, so mind the underage warning if that will bother you, though it's not mentioned in the text. Beta'd by dearygirl as always, but any mistakes are mine.

The days get longer and warmer, and they come to a flooded bridge, the stream swollen over its banks, eroding the asphalt chunk by chunk and rusting out the guard rails. Rick swears at the scene even as everyone else tumbles from the cars, but then he relents, calling out clipped instructions to do a quick check of the area and set up a watch. Daryl’s off to hunt, Hershel heads into the forest cover to forage, and Glenn, T-Dog, Rick, and Carl line up along the shore facing out to the road and the surrounding woods while Maggie, Carol, Beth, and Lori strip down and wade in.

The sun on the water sends dappled glints all over their skin like coins catching light in a fountain, all of them freckled with forgotten wishes.

Beth glances at their watch scattered along the edge of the road and the water, backs strong with their shirts sodden with sweat and clinging, guns and knives at the ready - even Carl dwarfed by Rick’s hat. 

Maggie taps her arm with a bar of soap and Beth takes it, her focus pulled back to their little circle in the knee-high water. Maggie and Carol are more rough and efficient as they wash; the bar of soap bears grooves from Maggie’s fingernails dragged through it and now she runs them against a brush to get the blood and grit out. It’s been literally months since they’ve washed this thoroughly and Beth finds herself a little frightened of what she’ll find, if her skin will still look the same underneath the coating of dry sweat and dirt they all wear like itching flaking armour.

When she hands the soap to Lori she tries not to stare, or not to be seen staring. There are a lot of open secrets; things everyone knows but none of them ever say out loud - except Beth, and she does remember how she must have sounded to Lori when she sat folded like a broken doll in her bed at home. 

Now it’s all gone and she’d have no safe place from which to question anyone, nothing but a third of the seat of a car or the dirt she sleeps on and Beth wonders, wonders if Lori realized that even then Beth had meant to ask how Lori was strong enough to do that. Brave enough - and maybe it was so brave it was stupid, it was suicidal even - to keep another life inside you when the dead were hunting, were herding and chasing and eating-

Lori’s belly is pear-shaped now, five months or so on, like the bulb of a tulip making a gentle slope between her still-prominent hipbones. 

No one’s talking about it but Maggie had given Lori a handful of rubber bands several weeks ago and Lori had given Beth a little eye-rolling grin as she slipped the band through the buttonhole of her jeans, brought the looped ends together and fit the button through them and then rolled the gapping waistband down, held snug around her hips below the jutting curve of her stomach. Beth had averted her eyes, feeling oddly like she was seeing too much in the midst of how much all of them saw all the time since the farm, this little necessary ritual that was finally an admission of what they all knew.

Now the four of them are naked but for stretched out ratty bras and underwear and Beth feels small and pale and gawky, but the cold water and impossibly soft soapsuds make her hands glide over her skin and she feels muscle definition that hadn’t ever been there before in her thighs and upper arms.

And she watches, carefully, from the corner of her eye, Lori’s long soapy fingers spreading around the bulb of her belly, seeming to measure it briefly in her hands, to take a moment to circle it with her palms gently. 

Maggie and Carol are each cupping water in their hands and tossing it over their heads but Lori reaches out and links hands with Beth and they wade carefully over the rocky creek bottom deeper toward the center until Lori’s waist deep and the cold water sluices around Beth’s ribcage.

Lori motions for Beth to turn when they have their footing, hands her the bar of soap and starts picking at the elastic that’s been holding Beth’s hair in the same messy knotted bun at the crown of her head for what feels like weeks now. Beth winces and curls her toes against the rocks, letting out a little squeaking whine at the intense ache in her scalp as her hair falls down around her shoulders.

“I know, I know,” Lori murmurs with a little sympathetic laugh as she starts combing through the strands and Beth shivers, almost light-headed. 

Beth glances over her shoulder when Lori taps her arm, motions for the soap and tells her to dunk and she sees Maggie and Carol already wading back out of the water to where their scrapped-together changes of clothes are waiting. Beth turns back and sinks down under the water, tugging her hair down around her from where it floats on the surface and when she stands again, turned for a moment and craning her neck to unwrap a strand from around one of her earrings she catches, for the briefest moment, Rick’s eyes.

He’d glanced over his shoulder, was answering a dressed Maggie when she said something to him as she walked past, and his gaze flicked back further, to Lori half-submerged in the water and Beth as she stood straight and ran her hands up over her face to clear the water away and the air suddenly feels ice cold and tingling in Beth’s lungs. Lori lathers the soap in Beth’s hair, from the tangled ends up through the roots and Beth closes her eyes against the flickers of sunlight and listens to the water moving around them.

_______________________

 

Beth rolls over and meets the glint of the low fire in Lori’s open eyes. She watches for just a moment, waiting, until Lori sighs and her eyes flick over to Beth’s. She’s laying with her knees bent and pointing toward Beth, twisted so her shoulders are almost flat on the ground but her face is turned toward Beth and the fire over her shoulder. Beth tucks her hands between her knees.

“Baby’s awake,” Lori whispers, closing her eyes briefly and wincing a little.

“Are you okay? D’you need-”

“No, no, it’s fine. Just doin’ gymnastics is all,” Lori says with a rueful little laugh.

Beth looks down at Lori’s belly, round and firm, the tank she’s wearing under her button down nudged up. The dim firelight trembles and morphs over Lori’s shape in the dark. Beth’s fingers twitch against her jeans.

“Ugh, Lord,” Lori mutters in a strained voice, closing her eyes and curling in on herself a little.

“Are you sure nothin’s wrong, I can get-”

“No, no sweetheart. Just feet in my ribs. It’s fine. Carl did the same thing.”

Beth takes in the reassuring, if tight, smile Lori shoots her through the dark, and settles back down.

Lori hums, smiling more softly now as she reaches out. “You want to-”

“Yeah,” Beth whispers quickly, reaching out to let Lori take her hand and splay it flat over her belly. Beth feels the movement, warm and slow, under her fingers and inhales sharply. She hadn’t thought about anything other than tiny feet kicking but this is a slow undulation, and when she looks at Lori again she explains softly, “shoulder,” smiling.

Beth keeps her eyes on Lori’s as she scoots closer. Lori holds out her other hand for Beth’s and places it low on her stomach skin to skin, and Beth takes in another quick breath, eyes jumping down when she can feel a hand press back against hers. Or maybe it’s a foot.

Tears rush to her eyes and she meets Lori’s again, a smile blooming on her face til it feels like she might split in half. She doesn’t think about it when she wriggles closer until her stomach is almost pressed against Lori’s, against the little body held snug and tight inside rolling and stretching and touching Beth’s hands through Lori’s skin. The fire pops and crackles behind her and sends up a trail of sparks that illuminate Lori’s gentle smile and the wetness in her own eyes.

“It’s beautiful,” Beth murmurs, and she wants to wrap herself around Lori, curl her body over the restless little person inside her and feel those slow sleepy movements all over.

Lori sniffles and Beth looks up quickly, murmuring “oh,” and reaching up to run her fingertips lightly over Lori’s cheek just under her eye where tears are slipping down. Lori leans into the touch for a moment, and the shift brushes her lips and the tip of her nose against Beth’s palm before she tips her chin back down and breathes out another soft laugh.

“This happened with Carl too,” Lori says softly. “I cried at everything,” she adds, her voice almost strangled with tears, and Beth’s heart clenches in her chest as she runs her hand over Lori’s cheek again and then back through her hair. 

She’s reaching and it’s a little awkward but she doesn’t want to stop, doesn’t want to pull away, so she rests her wrist lightly against the side of Lori’s neck so she can keep trailing her fingers through Lori’s hair. It’s pretty, she’s always thought so, wavy and soft and it fits Lori, matches her softness and the darkness behind her eyes that has nothing to do with their matching deep brown color. Lori sighs and almost seems to shift closer and Beth’s fingers against the heavy silken curve of her stomach sweep in a semi-circle. 

Her eyes widen and fly back up to Lori’s when Lori twitches a little and smiles at her and suddenly Beth feels like she’s falling over the edge of something, rushing down through silent soft air, frozen and caught and floating. She wants too much, too many things far too much and it can’t be okay even in the low gold light of the fire as it dies, and Lori seems to sense the sudden stillness in her and she reaches up and takes Beth’s hand gently from her hair. She presses her lips to Beth’s palm briefly and holds it against her cheek.

“Thank you baby,” she murmurs, and Beth closes her eyes and nods. 

She pulls her hand away and presses it with her other against Lori’s belly once more, fingers spread wide to cup the curve of it. Inside the baby rests, settled and still.

Beth pulls away and rolls over, murmuring “goodnight,” quickly before curling her knees up to her chest and folding her arms over her stomach, hands tucked tightly against her ribs.

She feels the breath of her name on Lori’s lips, Lori’s slim hand just barely touching her back between her shoulder blades.

“Goodnight sweetheart.”

_______________________

 

They’re in a house for the first time in months and it feels odd, unnerving and almost frightening to be separated by walls once they finish the first sweep and round of work to get the place secure so they can settle for the night. It’s early evening, sun blaring in through all the front windows of the west-facing house and turning the rooms orange and gold around the shadows. Carol is on watch while Rick and Daryl hunt, T-Dog asleep before his shift later, Maggie and Glenn locked in one of the bedrooms, and Hershel had roped Carl into helping put together the meal they’ll all grab bits of throughout the night between sleep and watch. Beth hears a floorboard creak as she slips down the upstairs hallway and peeks in the partially-open door to the room she was meant to be sharing with Carol later on. Lori is there, her back to the doorway, leaning against the wall braced on one arm bent at the elbow as she kneads at her lower back with her other.

“Lori?” Beth asks, and her voice is high and thin, strained with worry.

Lori jumps a little, then holds her hand out and sighs, “Sweetie, can you-?”

Beth crosses the room and sets her hand on Lori’s, lets her place it on her lower back against her spine and press in over Beth’s fingers. “Can you just press hard as you can right . . . no a little to the left, oh, there, yes.”

Beth swallows and presses. “Harder,” Lori murmurs.

She takes a breath and braces her free hand on Lori’s hip, giving herself a little more leverage, and she makes a fist with her other hand and digs her knuckles in where Lori had showed her, feeling the knot of muscle alongside Lori’s spine tighten under her pressure.

“Oh, right there, harder. If you can.”

Beth digs in more and Lori groans deeply and it feels like it climbs down Beth’s own throat and settles like lava in her belly, low and full. She bites her lip and watches Lori’s head tip back when Beth twists her fist, knuckles pressing in deeply and working the muscle even more.

“Oh shit,” Lori breathes, and Beth closes her eyes when Lori’s hips arch a little, pressing back into Beth’s hands. Her fingers twitch against Lori’s skin where her jeans and shirt gap and it feels like burning, like fire slipping into Beth’s veins and suffusing her entire body with rushing pulsing heat.

“Lori,” she whispers. She drops her forehead to Lori’s back and her hand on Lori’s hip clenches and kneads too.

They stand there, and Beth shifts a little closer until she’s pressed along Lori’s back, and she stops pressing with her fist, her hand just limply pressed between them. She can feel Lori’s breathing gone ragged, the sudden tension in her posture.

“Baby, I can’t-”

“Don’t stop me,” Beth whispers, and she slides her hand on Lori’s hip forward, fingertips tracing down the full heavy curve of Lori’s belly and down.

“Beth,” Lori’s voice is shocked, barely. And sorrowful. And heated.

Beth reaches, feels Lori’s hips tip back, and then her fingers are in Lori’s underwear, sliding through coarse curls to slick hot flesh.

She wants to fall apart right then, her mind gone blank and screaming bright as she squeezes her eyes shut and breathes in deep against Lori’s shirt clinging to her back. It’s her sweat, damp against Beth’s cheek as she slides her fingers deeper, curling up and coating them in warm soft wet until Lori lets out a sobbing breath.

Maggie and Glenn are mostly quiet but the bed is creaking in the room next door and there’s the occasional un-muffled groan and the noises mingle with Lori’s heavy breaths and Beth’s slight whimpers as she keeps going, working her fingers blindly and chasing every twitch of Lori’s hips. 

She tugs her hand out from between them and for a moment she falters and rests it high on Lori’s side, somehow shy until Lori’s fingers lock with hers and tug their hands forward together to rest over Lori’s chest, her heart pounding hard and fast against Beth’s palm. Beth presses her mouth to Lori’s back, hips arching against Lori’s, fingers slipping. But then something makes Lori pull in a tight breath with a high pitched whine in it, and the sound is so different from her soft low voice, from even her throaty groan earlier, and Beth tips her head up, chin against the knobs of Lori’s spine, and Lori turns her head and Beth can see every helpless breath fall from her lips as she comes.

Beth rocks with her, gasping and clinging, desperately stroking even though her hand is cramping until Lori twitches violently and trembles, letting go of Beth’s hand at her chest to reach down and grasp her wrist.

“Oh no,” she breathes, “Beth, I can’t . . .”

“Shh, please. Please.” 

Tears rush to her eyes and she pulls away slowly, falling back a step on shaking legs as Lori turns and stares at her wide-eyed, her clothes still a mess and her cheeks flushed. Beth slides her fingers against each other discreetly at her side, slick and sticky and she wants to keep them that way, keep Lori on them like a secret that she won’t have to give up in a few moments. 

“Please,” she manages once more, her throat clogged with tears.

Lori closes her eyes and brings her hands to her face, fingers pressed to her lips. Beth edges closer until she’s in Lori’s space again, and she reaches up and tugs one of Lori’s hands away. Lori’s eyes slide open and she watches Beth as their hands link together and drop to the side. Beth looks up at Lori looking down at her, feels the brief stroke of Lori’s fingers against her cheek, and then she’s reaching up, going on her tiptoes to kiss Lori, touch her lips to Lori’s, barely parted and fit together.

They sway, Lori accepting a little of Beth’s weight, palms settling at either side of her face, and Beth leans into her more, mind flying reckless like a paper airplane about to nosedive, her fingers dug into Lori’s shirt. Beth can feel herself saying it even with her lips still and tensed, chanting out a thousand “please”s with tears leaking out into the creases around her eyes carved deep from having them shut so tight. 

Lori’s hands stroke down Beth’s cheeks and she breaks the kiss only to whisper, “okay,” and cup her jaw, smoothing her thumbs over damp tear tracks. She brushes her lips over Beth’s forehead, above her eyebrows, and whispers again, “it’s okay,” tilting Beth’s face up slightly and falling back to her mouth, to Beth’s lips parted around a breath of shock and anxiety. 

Everything’s white behind Beth’s eyes, white like sheets billowing in hot sunlight, no sound in her ears but breath, their breath, and Beth imagines the air from Lori’s lungs rushing into hers, air that controls ocean currents now trading between their mouths soft and warm. They part again, barely air between them, noses brushing, and Beth reaches up, a hand around the back of Lori’s neck and her tongue in Lori’s mouth.

Beth’s eyes flutter open and she stares at Lori’s, closed as she kisses her, and she can’t focus because it’s too close, too big across her vision to see anything but the hazy fan of Lori’s eyelashes resting along her cheeks. There’s a soft sound, a half a moan from deep in Lori’s chest and it sends a rattling shiver through Beth’s stomach and she clings tighter for a split second before pulling away, lips wet, her whole chest pounding like a drum.

“It’s alright,” Lori says, and Beth’s feet settle into the floor and she can feel her own weight again, and a trickle of sweat starting at the back of her neck. “Sweetheart,” Lori murmurs, and Beth blinks and nods as she’s pulled in again slowly, Lori’s hands still and cool on her back. “I know honey, it’s gonna be okay.” 

Lori rocks them a little, swaying side to side and scratches gently at Beth’s scalp, pressing another kiss to the top of her head before disentangling them and standing Beth back a step with her hands on her arms. She smiles softly and brushes a finger along Beth’s cheekbone, a smoothing touch that feels like it knits Beth back together where she’d torn open.

“I just wanted,” Beth starts, voice cloudy in her throat, “I wanted to give you that. That’s all it has to be, it doesn’t have to be anything else-”

Lori’s eyes slip closed again, tears streaming down her cheeks, and she nods slowly and leans down to rest their foreheads together. Lori holds her, strokes her hands up and down Beth’s back and murmurs under her breath, pressing kisses to her hair. 

Before Beth feels like she’s done, before she’s ready to stand on her own, Lori’s pressing her back gently and peeling the strands of hair off Beth’s cheeks that are stuck there in the wet trails of her tears, neatening her up with soft sure fingers. Beth holds onto Lori’s hand as she turns and Lori does too, long thin arms stretching out to span the distance that grows until they drop away.

_______________________


End file.
